One Bite at a Time

Monday, October 14, 2013

The Walkaway

It’s hard to know what to expect in a book by Scott Phillips. There will be dark humor, and there will probably be a crime, though not necessarily, and whatever crime is committed may not be strictly illegal; more of a crime against conscience. For all the unpredictability, his books never disappoint. The more you read, the more different aspects of Phillips’s insight and talent become apparent. This is never more true than in The Walkaway.

The Walkaway begins a few years after Phillips’s debut novel, The Ice Harvest, leaves off. Gunther Fahnstiel has done what he did with the money (read the book to find out exactly what), and escaped from the facility where he’s being treated for his senility. Gunther sets out with a mission, but his declining mental state keeps him from gaining a firm grasp on what it is, or how he intends to accomplish it; he just knows he has one. His escape sets his friends and relatives in a frantic chase to find him, as well as to discover how he’s been paying for some things all these years.

Set against this story are the events of over fifty years previous, when Gunther, then a cop, stood guard over a remote cabin where the winners of the sex lottery at Collins Aircraft collected their prizes. A thoroughly corrupt returning veteran, Wayne Ogden, has returned and has his own reasons for stopping that operation by whatever means necessary.

The Walkaway has Phillips’s dry, dark wit, and the writing never interferes with what he wants to say. He weaves at least three stories together with virtuosity: Gunther’s mission, the search for Gunther, and flashbacks of what transpired after the war, all of which are related. Elements of The Ice Harvest are referenced. Readers of the more recent The Adjustment will recognize Wayne Ogden, as Phillips integrated that story into seams of this one. (I hadn’t read The Walkaway when I read The Adjustment. It was a unique experience to see how he had worked the two together from the other side, so to speak.)

I had a little trouble keeping everyone straight in the beginning. Hang in there. Phillips combs out the threads of each story line from the initial ball of fabric until each character and story line has its own personality. Before long you’re shifting points of view and time periods effortlessly, fascinated as each scene brings meaning to others.

By the end I was caught up in Gunther’s story. He was what he was and did what he did earlier in life. Now he’s a confused old man who isn’t sure what he’s done or what to do about it. I’ve never read a book by Phillips I didn’t enjoy; The Walkaway is special. It contains all the things that show Phillips’s skills while probing emotions in a unsentimental manner that allows the reader to draw his own conclusions and discover his own emotions. A wonderful book.

Lots of ways to pre-order Res Mall

Worst Enemies, Book 1 of the Penns River series

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Grind Joint, Book 2 of the Penns River series

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Forte 4: A Dangerous Lesson Available Now! Click the image below to purchase.

Chicago Private Investigator Nick Forte’s official task is to find out what he can about Jennifer Vandenbusch’s new suitor, who fails to measure up in the eyes of the family matriarch, Jennifer’s grandmother. This seems par for the course for Forte, as his personal life has been leading him through a series of men who treat women badly, though none nearly as badly as the Thursday Night Slasher. Forte lives on the fringes of the investigation run by his old friend Sonny Ng until elements of Forte’s case and life dovetail with the Slasher investigation, leading to Forte discovering more about the crimes—and himself—than he wanted to know.

The Man in the Window

"...we see him getting rougher, tougher and darker book by book. There are multiple twists in the end, two cool sidekicks, good action scenes and some pretty nifty Chanderlisms in this book, adding up to a perfect PI read"--Sons of Spade blog

The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of (Nick Forte 2)

It's a kind of authorial magic that The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of works as a tribute and as a story, and that neither aspect interferes in the least with the other… I can imagine this book finding its way into a class on writing crime fiction as an example of how to pay tribute to one's predecessors while at the same time writing a story that can stand on its own. It's an impressive accomplishment.--- Peter Rozovsky, Detectives Beyond Borders, December 18, 2014

About Me

Two of my Nick Forte Private investigator novels (A SMALL SACRIFICE and THE MAN IN THE WINDOW) received nominations for Shamus Awards. I also write a series of police procedurals set in the economically depressed town of Penns River PA, published by Down & Out Books. A non-fiction essay, “Chandler’s Heroes,” appeared in Spinetingler Magazine online in October of 2013.
I live in Laurel MD with The Beloved Spouse.